Headspace: a Great Way to Start Meditating!

 Meditation has numerous research-backed mental health benefits. It can lead to many long-term changes for your brain, including: reducing baseline anxiety and depression, increasing ability to focus, enhancing relaxation when you are not working, improving sleep, and increasing your overall happiness level!

 Headspace is an app that provides guided meditations to every ability; whether you have never meditated before or it is something you practice daily. They have partnered with universities in the UK to offer students a huge 85% discount for membership costs, meaning a yearly subscription only costs £7.99!

 They also have a 30 day free trial, if you’re unsure whether this is something you want to commit to. I’d really encourage you to give it a try, even a short one minute meditation, just to see how it makes you feel afterwards and during the rest of the day.

 I started using Headspace back in 2017, when a friend recommended it as a tool to stay calm during school exam seasons. I was a little sceptical at first, I had not grown up in a culture that practiced meditation regularly and I wasn’t even sure if I could practically do it.

 Now I generally do a 20 minute guided meditation each day, and have found it is greater for improving focus during periods of study. It has also helped me become more aware of what emotions I am experiencing, meaning I am able to address them before they start to spiral out of control.

 Headspace offers a wide variety of packs and courses for all sorts of different emotions or stages of life, alongside short one-off guided meditations for throughout the day.

 So give Headspace a go today! You can download the app on your phone, or follow the link below to a video explaining meditation.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W38Xhg0afWs

By Todd Langstaff

Wellbeing Ambassador for the School of Law